British Pottery Marks

If you are new to collecting pottery, or even if you aren't, you will undoubtedly spend quite a lot of time poring over the pottery marks of the pieces in your collection.

Variously referred to as backstamps, pottery marks, pottery backstamps and makers' marks, these represent the very DNA of your pottery, and if understood can often reveal its history to you.

Unfortunately, there are many thousands, if not millions of markings used on British pottery alone, and so even the experts rely on books and guides to help them with the finer details. I've been collecting British pottery, mostly from the early 20th century, for several years now, and have gathered together a list of useful resources, both online and offline, which I'd like to share with you.

There are some very good resources around to help you identify UK pottery marks, and many of them are free. Here are the ones I find most useful:

• Online British Pottery Marks Guide - Perfect Pieces
• PotteryMarks.co.uk - A UK Site for Studio Pottery Marks
• International Ceramics Directory - a (long) list of sites with freely accessible pottery mark guides
• The Museum of Cornish Ceramics - a very comprehensive digital guide to Cornish studio pottery markings.

Unfortunately, there is no one single reference that can tell you everything, but for UK potteries, there are a couple of books that come extremely close, and between them cover the vast majority of British pottery marks you are likely to come across. I own both of these and can confirm they are extremely well-thumbed and are kept close at hand at all times.

I've divided the list into two sections - big reference books to keep at home and handy, pocket-sized guides to take with you when you go shopping for antique pottery!

Comprehensive pottery mark reference guides:

• Encyclopaedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks
• British Studio Potters' Marks

These books are both large, high-quality hardback books by acknowledged experts on UK pottery - they come closer than anything else to covering every possible pottery mark. Although they aren't cheap, if you are a serious collector or a dealer, they are essential and worth every penny.

Pocket-sized Guides to carry around with you:

• Millers Pottery and Porcelain Marks

Millers guides are popular with collectors, and this book is comprehensive enough to be useful and small enough to carry around with you.

The resources I've recommended on this page are all ones I personally use and would recommend to anyone with an interest in British pottery - I hope you find them useful.